President Donald Trump has made good on a promise to allow religious organizations greater freedom in political speech, but will they use it?
"I think most priests and clergy members are going to be aware that they don’t want to split the congregation," Father Leo Perez at San Antonio's Oblate School of Theology tells Newsradio 1200 WOAI.
The order basically orders the IRS to not enforce the Johnson Amendment, which bans tax-exempt organizations from political speech and activities. In a Rose Garden ceremony this week, President Trump announced his administration would be leading by example when it came to religious liberty.
"Faith is deeply embedded into the history of our country, the spirit of our founding and the soul of our nation. We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore," he said.
Father Perez says every congregation is different. Some will jump into politics, feet first. Others will keep the status quo.
"Politics is very divisive, so they'll be cautious about not turning people off," he explained.
The order also guts the Obamacare mandate for contraception in health care. It runs in line with the narrowly tailored 2014 Hobby Lobby case, where the Supreme Court ruled that the part of the Affordable Care Act that required corporations to provide employees with no-cost access to contraception was a violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops cheered the move.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo is the president and the Archbishop of Galveston-Houston.
"In recent years, people of faith have experienced pressing restrictions on religious freedom from both the federal government and state governments that receive federal funding. For example, in areas as diverse as adoption, education, healthcare, and other social services, widely held moral and religious beliefs, especially regarding the protection of human life as well as preserving marriage and family, have been maligned in recent years as bigotry or hostility - and penalized accordingly. But disagreement on moral and religious issues is not discrimination; instead, it is the inevitable and desirable fruit of a free, civil society marked by genuine religious diversity."